


Brightly Burning

by TK_DuVeraun



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon What Canon, Drama & Romance, F/M, Familial Bonds, Hanahaki Disease - eventually, Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum, no true Mandalorian, sometimes a story is a single dad his kid and the aupair, the resol'nare is more like guidelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21910915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TK_DuVeraun/pseuds/TK_DuVeraun
Summary: Mandalore the Patient has assigned you, personally, to hunt down the so-called Mandalorian that shot up Nevarro and ran off with his bounty target. You didn't expect to find arealMandalorian, even one as misguided as him. Really, you have no choice, but to bring him home, get his weird ideas straightened out and, oh yeah, protect the kid while you're at it.
Relationships: The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Comments: 35
Kudos: 176





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are many versions of Mandalorians spread across licensed, though no longer necessarily canon, works and I'm using the version I prefer rather than the one represented in the show or even necessarily from Clone Wars or Rebels. If it's not your cup, that's fine, but we're only going deeper from here on in, so here's your free pass to back out if you don't like it. 
> 
> Cheers!

You aren’t one for solo jobs. Since the Purge, your clan leader assigns missions to groups to ensure everyone comes back, but you can’t exactly turn down a mission from Mandalore the Patient. You stared straight into his T-visor as he ordered you, ordered your clan leader to send you alone. It has all the hallmarks of a suicide mission. Hunt down the _dar’manda_ who betrayed the Bounty Hunter’s Guild and leveled half of Nevarro to run away with the target. And all you have are some coordinates and a tracking fob for the target.

But you’re nothing if not a skilled hunter. The skulls painted in garish Nar green on your armor have been your solo kills since you ran out of space for deathblows.You track him down on Tollan IV, a tidally-locked moon with a repair dock branching out of its artificial atmosphere. 

“Another Mandalorian?” The uniformed nikto asks. They whistle. “Two in as many weeks. And here I thought you guys’d died out.”

You hold back the bile at the _dar’manda_ being called Mandalorian and grunt. “Where is he?”

“Oh, you’re friends! That shoulda been obvious. He took his kid down to the old mining camp.”

You flip him a New Republic credit chit. “What kind of mines are talking about? I didn’t get a lot of details about this little field trip.”

“Kyber crystals. It was cleaned out just after the Jedi massacre.”

Your nostrils flare, but you don’t give the nikto any reaction past a curt nod. One of your brothers, one adopted by your parents rather than just a clan-sibling, always says your face is too expressive, that you rely too much on the T-visor to hide how you really feel. You respond with an eye roll or thrown gauntlet depending on how the last hunt went.

You lean against the wall of the elevator as it takes you down. As the ground approaches, you imagine you can feel a memory, an echo of the kyber crystals once below the surface. But it’s not real. The Force can’t make it through Mandalorian steel. If it could, the Imps wouldn’t have slaughtered your people to steal it. Wouldn’t have paid an entire battalion just to kill your father.

Tidally-locked moons are always dreary with the atmosphere, artificial or not, fading in and out as it’s blasted every hour of every day by the nearest star. You don’t think about the dark side. Star-toasted dust clings to your armor up to your knees by the time you make it to the mining town. You scan with your eyes and the sensors in your helmet, sifting through the deluge of information with practiced ease. Instinct makes you look down in time to see the child before they touch you. 

The child reaches out their hand for your knee, but you pick them up before they make contact. They’re small and green with large ears; you’ve seen their race before, but you can’t place where, let alone remember the name. You pull a white cloth off your belt. It’s a trophy, an Echani wrist wrap, but the child doesn’t have a hat to protect itself from the sun, so you wrap up their head and twitching ears. The tracking fob goes wild while you hold them. 

“You, huh?”

The child coos at you.

“Hey! Put him down!”

You bare your teeth and hope the power of your glare makes it from your T-visor to his. No one’s claimed him. He’s upset the Bounty Hunter’s Guild: there’s no question he’s _dar’manda,_ but you have to play nice, show basic respect until you have confirmation. “ _Tion’cuy?_ ”

“Put him down,” he repeats slowly, as if you’re stupid.

“ _Tion gar gai?_ ” You turn, putting your body between him and the child as you shout the question.

He puts his hand on his blaster and stumbles through his command in horribly accented Huttese.

“...You have no idea what I even said, do you? What kind of pathetic pretender are you?” In a flash, you pull your blaster and fire it. The yellow shot hits the mark, grazing off his unpainted shoulder piece. “Who did you steal the armor from?”

“Steal? This is my armor. I’m a Mandalorian.” The confusion and offense in his voice is so raw and honest you almost lower your blaster. Almost.

“I’m insulted, you see this? This is my insulted face.” Nevermind that you’re wearing a T-visor. It’s a common joke among Mandalorians, not that this thing would know. “You could have at least _tried_ to pull this off. Six things. It’s literally only six things that make a Mandalorian. Path two: speak the language, _demagolka._ ”

“Give me the child. I’m a foundling. I only just earned this before-”

“No one gives a flying kark that you’re adopted, you- Why am I even arguing about this?” You set the child on the ground pat him on the head. He’s still hesitating to draw his blaster when you throw yours at his head. Before it makes contact, you dash at him, dagger in hand. He’s fumbling for a grip on your blaster when you slip your dagger between his armor plates and stab it into his thigh. If he’s as close to a human as his silhouette suggests, it’s severed his femoral artery. You leave the blade in and pop the seal on his helmet.

All attempts at countering you stop as he clutches his helmet with both hands. “I’m not going to let you get me kicked out just because you don’t believe me.”

With a growl, you throw him to the ground and step on his chest, your sabaton screeching against his unpainted cuirass. “You trying to tell me you’re a spice-ridden ‘Orthodox Tribe’?” You spit the words out with a sneer that even a miraluka would notice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My tribe has been on Nevarro since the fall of the Empire, trying to rebuild.”

“ _Shabla aliit_. Kriffing ‘tribe’.” You kick him in the side and back off. 

You’re patting yourself down, trying to decide if this idiot is worth the kolto you have, when the child toddles over to him. He’s sitting up with his head tilted down at the wound in his leg. With gentleness belied by his appearance, if one didn’t know Mandalorians, he pats the child. 

“I suppose the target being a child explains why you ran off with him.”

“You think?” He takes a hold on the hilt of your dagger. 

“Don’t pull that out.”

He looks up at you. “I’m not stupid. I’m trying to figure out how to secure it until I can find a medic that won’t try to strip me.”

“You know that’s not what it means, right?”

The tilt of his head is unmistakably a Mandalorian sigh. Why couldn’t he have just been _dar’manda?_ That would have made the job so simple. “What’s not what _what_ means?”

“The _Resol’Nare._ Wear the armor just means that it’s a part of who you are. You take care of it. Repair and decorate like it’s your own flesh, not keep it on at literally all times like some kind of terrified shaclaw.”

“That’s not what-” He interrupts himself with a howl as the child removes the dagger from his leg. 

You’re on your knees with your kolto injection jabbed in his leg before the blade even hits the ground. The child whines as the _di’kut_ picks him up and moves him to his good side.

“I don’t know why he’s so attracted to - Ah! - injuries.”

“Maybe you smell like prey.”

“You’re not helping.”

Tossing away the empty needle, you get to your feet and offer a hand down. “Come on, let’s go.”

“We’re not going anywhere with you.”

“Either you come meet my clan leader so she can verify your story or I take your helmet to Mandalore and adopt the kid myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _dar'manda_ \- lit. opposite of Mandalorian, refers to someone who was disavowed by the clans (i.e. excommunicated)
> 
>  _Tion’cuy?_ \- "Who are you?" (but a demand, a la "Identify yourself.")
> 
>  _Tion gar gai?_ \- "What's your name?"
> 
>  _demagolka_ \- the harshest Mandalorian insult. There's more to it, but it'll come up in the plot later and I don't want to spoil it for people who don't live and breathe Mandalorians.
> 
>  _Shabla aliit_ \- screwed up clan
> 
>  _Resol’Nare_ \- Six Paths - this is the word for the six tenets of Mandalorian life.
> 
>  _di'kut_ \- idiot  
> 
> 
> Hey friends! I live in the Old Republic Era of the EU, so I had quibbles with The Mandalorian that I'm reconciling with the conceit that Mando's clan is an "orthodox clan" (they call themselves a tribe) that chose not to reunite with the new Mandalore after the Purge because they wanted to live by their more restrictive interpretation of the _resol'nare_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as before, word bank at the bottom

There’s nothing better than coming home. You drop the idiot and the child off in the command center, making them the clan leader’s problem, and leave your helmet with the armorsmith for repairs. Then it’s a matter of returning greetings and playful punches until you make it to the training grounds. You leap at your twin, jumping onto his back while he’s distracted sparring with your adopted brother. You rub your armored knuckles into his hair, red like your father’s.

“I lived, bitch!” you shout as he tries to throw you off.

Aran swings around, trying to shake you off, before jumping and throwing himself backwards so you hand in a pile of laughing armor. “I’m not the one that doubted you.”

Your adopted brother, Vas, tilts his T-visor in a half circle -- he’s rolling his eyes. “Don’t say it like I doubted her, either.” He returns his vibrosword to the harness on his back and offers you and your twin each a hand up. “What did you choose to take as a trophy?”

You rub the back of your neck. “Ah, well, turns out he’s not quite _dar’manda. Alor_ will make the final on it, of course, but turns out he’s from an ‘orthodox tribe’ that got lost after the Purge. And the bounty he ran off with? A child.”

Aran whistles. “You stepped in some real bantha kark, didn’t you?”

Together, you clean up the training grounds, resetting the practice droids and stowing away the shock-blades. Vas puts his arm over your shoulders as you walk to the canteen. “This all begs the question, though: why is the entire Bounty Hunter’s Guild so desperate to catch or kill the target if they’re a child?”

You shake your head. “They’re not a race I’m familiar with; even my wrist scanner came up empty. The original client was some gaudy noble or general in the old Empire, so who knows?”

Aran scratches his chin. “Think _buir_ ’s going to adopt him?”

“It’s more likely than you growing a real beard,” you shoot back.

“Rude!”

“She’s not wrong.” Vas claims a table while you grab lunch. He doesn’t eat with you. Like the idiot, he never takes his helmet off in public, though his reasoning is deeper than a misinterpretation of the _Resol’Nare._ He hates his bloodline and despite _cin vhetin,_ despite no one in Clan Meshurok caring, he never shows his face. He drinks through the straw in his T-visor and catches you up on the clan gossip while you and your twin dig in. 

Your over-spiced bowl of stew is nearly empty when you’re summoned to the command center. Aran greedily takes your leftovers before you’ve even stood up. You cuff the back of his head. “Yeah, missed you, too, little brother.”

“Hey, I’m bulking right now. I need the calories!”

You throw a rude hand gesture behind your back as you make your way to the front of the camp. You detour to kiss a toddler on her chubby cheeks and usher her back towards the living quarters before coming up on the heavy, banded doors to the command center. Ty’lk is on guard, his armor a hideous yellow with loth cat stripes on the arms. He stops you with a hand on your shoulder.

“You know _alor_ had it out with Mandalore after you left, right?”

You shake your head and look at the ground. “She shouldn’t have. It may have been a slight, but I _was_ the best warrior for the job.”

“She doesn’t want to lose you, too.”

“ _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la_ ,” you say.

With a sigh, Ty’lk puts his hand over his heart. “Don’t be like that.”

“If I’m not allowed to prove myself, then she’s already lost me. I am a warrior and I will go down fighting just like Dad.”

“I know, I know, but let your mother worry without a fight, for once. She’s never held you back from a job. You know that.”

You puff out your cheeks and cross your arms in frustration. “She doesn’t get like this about Aran.”

“Aran may look like your old man, but you’re the one with his heart in your chest. Go easy on her. It’s only a few years before she steps down and Vas takes over. And he’ll work you to the bone. Enjoy it while it lasts.” He laughs and then punches in the entry code.

“Go lecture him.” You swat his shoulder. “Vas still needs a lot of convincing that he’s good enough to take over.”

“All in good time.”

You hip check him as you walk past and enter the _alor_ ’s office laughing. The green child turns to you and coos happily, so you pick them up after taking your place next to the desk. You don’t spare the idiot a glance. You nod to the _alor._ “Reporting.”

“Where’s your helmet?” she asks. Her stare is powerful, even through her T-visor. “I know you just got back, but you didn’t report any damage.”

“Tollen’s sun kriffed with the sensors. Nouj is recalibrating it. Should be an easy fix.” Moving only your eyes, you look at the idiot, but his T-visor is directed perfectly forward. “New job already?”

“Our new _vod_ believes the Guild is still hunting the child. I’ll speak with Mandalore, but he hasn’t asserted himself over them yet. I don’t agree with him, but he has his reasons.”

“He’s not ‘the Patient’ for nothing.”

You can hear the grimace in her voice when she says, “Nevertheless, I don’t want hunters storming the _yaim._ Your new friend isn’t officially joining us, yet, but you’re to go with him, protect the child and fix…” She waves at his unpainted armor. “...All of this. Start with _mando’a._ If he runs into the wrong clan they may not give him benefit of the doubt.”

“And the child’s one of ours?” You bounce them in your arms.

Your mother says “yes” at the same time the idiot says “no,” but there’s no question who you’ll listen to. 

“Got it. Do you know…” You jerk your chin at the child.

“I’ve definitely seen his race before, but I can’t pin it, either. I’ll ask around.” She adjusts her posture - the orders are over. “You didn’t do anything funny to your ship, did you?”

“That was one time.”

“And we had to replace one of the engine blocks.”

“ _Alor-_ ”

“I’ve heard it all. I’ll send Aran to pick it up to be safe.”

“You know he’s bulking up again, right? Did you approve that?”

“You did a good job, _ad;_ I’m proud of you. This isn’t a babysitting mission, but if it was-”

“-Then it would be a high honor because there’s nothing more valuable than our children,” you finish, tone sullen. “I’m not complaining, but I expect a vrake hunt or better for birthday.”

The _alor_ laughs. “We’ll see how you feel after a few weeks of keeping this one alive.”

“I got the _di’kut_ in his femoral. I expect you want me to train him, too?” You see him helmet-sigh out of the corner of your eye.

“If you have time. These two are almost as good at attracting trouble as you.”

“That was one-”

“You got glassed by the _bartender._ ”

“He was wookie.”

“So it’s your own fault for bragging about your Points at his bar.”

You don’t have anything to say to that. “Alright, enough. I’ll send regular reports.”

“Good luck, kid.” She takes one of your hands. “ _Ret’ ad._ ”

“ _Ret’ buir._ ” You squeeze her fingers and then release your grip. You turn and knock on the idiot’s shoulder plate. “Come on. We’ll grab my helmet and some gear and get out of here.”

He stands and follows you without comment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _dar'manda_ \- not Mandalorian (anymore)
> 
>  _alor_ \- clan leader
> 
>  _buir_ \- parent
> 
>  _Resol'Nare_ \- six tenets of Mandalorian life
> 
>  _cin vhetin_ \- fresh start (means that your life begins when you become Mandalorian and nothing that came before matters)
> 
>  _meshurok_ \- gemstone
> 
>  _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la_ \- "Not gone, merely marching far away." A common Mandalorian saying.
> 
>  _mando'a_ \- the Mandalorian language
> 
>  _ad_ \- child
> 
>  _di'kut_ \- idiot
> 
> I am so sorry about the flagrant use of _mando'a_ , but I have tried to make the words either obvious from context or to have their exact meaning be unimportant. While the Named clan members may come up in conversation, the next several chapters are all just Mando, child, aupair adventure time!
> 
> Thanks for reading, please comment if you're having a good time :)


	3. Chapter 3

The Razor Crest creaks and groans as it flies. You sit in the cockpit with the child in your lap and a varactyl toy in his. You mimic screechy cries and wiggle the toy by one of its hindlegs. You make a funny face every time the child looks at you and that, more than anything, is why you find the idiot’s policy on helmets ridiculous. Children need more than words; it’s how they learn empathy.

Without warning, the child drifts off to sleep in your arms and the smile on your face is so fond you know that you’ll adopt him when the idiot gets himself killed. You smooth the wrinkles on the child’s face. “What are you called, anyway? I’m content to call you  _ di’kut _ until this is over, but I doubt you’d appreciate your child learning that.”

He looks through the system on his nav computer, as if you won’t know he’s stalling. “They just call me Mando.”

“No.”

He glances you, but doesn’t defend or explain himself.

“Only one of us is a real  _ mando’ad _ and it’s not you. I am not, by the ancestors this is ridiculous. I am not going to call you Mando.”

A tilt of his helmet. A silent ‘suit yourself.’

“No, it’s not happening. I’m sure being taciturn and silent wins you all sorts of arguments, but I’m from a family that likes to argue.” You lift the child and set him in the bassinet before turning back to the controls.

“You asked. I answered.”

“When  _ alor _ finds your clan, I am going to fight so many honor duels. Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? You have to earn your name and you haven’t yet.” You put your face in both of your hands when he doesn’t react. Your groan echoes through the cockpit. You straighten at once, putting your hands in your lap. “This is fine. I can handle this.”

He looks at you, holds it long enough that he probably has something to say, but he keeps it in.

“You are now Ca’buir, Cabu for short.” You clap your hands together. “And I suppose the child doesn’t have a name, either?”

“Not one he’s said.”

“I’m going to poison your food.”

In lieu of a proper response, he selects a planet on his nav. “We’re landing on Kosi in an hour.”

“I hate you!” you shout at his back as he leaves the cockpit to prep his gear. The child stirs with a yawn, but no cry at his interrupted nap. “Sorry,  _ ad’ika, _ but that lout is giving me the Sith madness.”

The child blinks and reaches out a hand.

Dutifully, you give him your finger and sigh. “I’ll come up with something good for you. He said you saved him from a mudhorn,  _ verd’ika. _ You deserve a proper warrior’s name.” You hand him the varactyl plush and scoop him out of the bassinet.

\---

Kosi is a mass of twisting canyons, but unlike Tatooine, violent rivers snake through the depths and the tree cover is so thick you wouldn’t know there were canyons without the scanner in your helmet. Your mouth waters at the sight, imagining what kinds of beasts dwell within. There could even be vrakes that use their wings. Coalwyrms that burst through ageless layers of dead foliage. The child coos in your arms. 

“I know,” you answer. “We’ll get many Points today.”

“Points?” Cabu asks.

“Oh, are we having a conversation, now? And here I was getting used to talking to myself.” Your boots crunch through water-fat vines on the ground and a fat gourd makes a visceral splash when you kick it into a tree. You finger broken branches as if it’ll tell you what burst through.

“This isn’t a leisure trip.” Cabu cuts a path through the hanging vines with janky, unbalanced vibroblade, but you’re hardly about to offer yours. He’s better with ranged weapons, if his arsenal is anything to judge by and your sword is your primary weapon.

You scowl through your visor. “Not with that attitude.”

“Points?” He repeats. “And how did they get you glassed by a wookie bartender?”

The answer is involved, so you put the child in his sling and shift it around to your back. There’s still a long scar behind your ear from the altercation that you’ll show off later. “Do you know what trandoshans are?”

You imagine his eyebrows pulling together. “Yes.”

“Well they worship a deity called Scorekeeper. She takes them in when they die and provides them treatment proportional to their Points. Everything has Points and when you kill or capture it, those points are transferred to you. If you get captured, you lose all of your Points, so most trandoshans would rather die than be taken alive.”

“You’re not a trandoshan.”

“Hunting is as much of a cultural touchstone for them as it is for us. There have been Mandalorians giving offerings to Scorekeeper since the disputed times.” You wave away his protest before he voices it. “Obviously orthodox tribes wouldn’t allow it, but we have a handful in Meshurok. When you grow up with your best friends counting Points, you end up doing it regardless of what you believe.”

“You’re always swearing to your ancestors.”

“Is that not what-”

“I’m a foundling.” He holds his hand to the side both to stop your argument and to keep you from stepping on a mottled black and red snake with a body as thick around as your waist. Not that you would have. You noticed it first. Well, you hadn’t, but you wouldn’t have stepped on it.

“Long story short, trandoshans and wookies are racial enemies and both races have come to the edge of extinction over the years.”

“So you were bragging about being a wookie-killer in front of a wookie.”

“It was on Sarkhai… Major hunting planet? I assumed they’d be used to it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“No one said I didn’t deserve it.” You smile when that gets a huff that is probably as close to laughter as he’s capable of with that stick so far up his ass. 

The track you follow is little more than a game path. Old blood stains some of the trees and others bear the scars of some combination of claws, tusks and horns. It feels so much like home you walk for an hour and give the child a snack over your shoulder before asking what you  _ are _ doing on Kosi.

“I have a contact here. I want him to have a look at the child.”

“That’s the main reason I didn’t kill you, you know.”

He marinates on that comment for another hour and the trees still show no sign that a sentient being lived nearby. When they reach a canyon wall, he sighs and pulls out climbing claws. “What was the main reason?”

You frown and let him stew a little longer. The child needs to be more firmly strapped to you and you’re annoyed he didn’t mention the need for climbing gear before you left the ship. You have it; you’re a professional, but you’re not sure if the lack was out of respect or spite. Probably both. “The child. No one cares for children like us. Even if you were  _ dar’manda, _ you deserved a chance to prove yourself.”

Frozen, he stares at you while you secures the attachments to your boots and gauntlets. Neither of you speak during the climb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _di'kut_ \- idiot
> 
>  _mando'ad_ \- Mandalorian
> 
>  _alor_ \- Clan Leader
> 
>  _ca'buir_ "bright parent" - she's being sarcastic 
> 
> _ad'ika_ \- (small) child
> 
>  _verd'ika_ \- little warrior
> 
> \---
> 
> I hope you're having good winter/summer holidays! You can give authors gifts by commenting!


	4. Chapter 4

Instead of a fire, you set up camp around a lightless, smokeless heater. The perimeter is sealed with a triangle of lasers keyed into your armor. Cabu doesn’t need much convincing before he lets you load the program into his helmet.

“Is all of this fancy tech part of being a proper Mandalorian?” His tone is dry, but you recognize the ring of humor behind the words. Probably.

“Meshurok has a habit of adopting inventors and tech savants. The Life Day hunt is wired tech or below only.” You settle in against the trunk of a tree with drooping, elliptical leaves. “Anything you want to tell me about this forest before I take first watch?”

“The snakes are the only things that will bother us at this elevation. If the drop off wasn’t so good, I wouldn’t let you use the heater.” Cabu meticulously tucks the plush blanket you brought around the child. The bassinet is back on the Razor Crest, so he sleeps on the inside of your kite shield, the hand-painted fox pressed into the soft loam. You can touch up the design when you’re back on the ship.

“If the drop off wasn’t so good, I wouldn’t have brought it.” With your full _beskar_ and his partial, only the child needs any additional heating, but some primal instinct compelled you to bring it. 

Cabu sits in unnatural stillness before begrudgingly laying on his side, curled around the shield. He’s starting to come around, at least a little. “Why do we bring them? Heaters are on every kit list.”

“What did your clan say?”

“I never asked.” You can’t tell if his eyes are open, but you imagine him staring up at the few stars visible through the canopy.

“I-” You stop and take a deep breath. “I’ve got biases. Strong ones, but I assume there’s a good reason you didn’t ask.”

“We haven’t exactly had the time or resources for a pleasure hunt since I was taken in.”

“Did _alor_ offer you a place with us?”

“You wonder why I don’t talk with you when you don’t answer my questions.”

“Aside from heavy gene-mod races like echani and chiss, most people have an instinctual need for campfires. You’re full of tension, don’t sleep well, can’t concentrate… The heater is the least we can pack that calms the response. There’s a lot of psychology behind our gear. Depending on what you take from the disputed times, even the shape of…” You gesture to your T-visor, even though he couldn’t see it even if his eyes were open.

“The helmet?”

“Yeah.”

“What are the disputed times? And don’t swear at me again. You’ll teach him bad language.”

“Did _alor_ offer you a place with us?”

“Yes. I have my own tribe.”

You shift your shoulders and stretch your neck. “Fine. The disputed times are when we began as a people. The ‘dispute’ is over whether or not we were originally a genetically distinct race or if it’s always just been the _Resol’Nare._ The origin race, if it existed, had faces that somehow resembled the T-visor. The two main arguments being that it’s not a particularly structurally sound shape for a helmet, but neither is that an evolutionarily-friendly shape for a face unless the ‘T’ is some kind of three-edged maw, which isn’t what the other side postulates.”

He takes so long to respond, you think he’d fallen asleep.

“What do you believe?”

“In the _Resol’Nare._ Comparative genetic studies between _mando’ade_ populations and peoples from primitive or otherwise racially, um, unaltered worlds show nothing unique in us, but if the origin race was incompatible with humans, it’s feasible they could have died out without significant intermixing- The details don’t matter. It’s stupid, political and the root of a solid eighty percent of fights between clans.”

The silence of the night sinks into you when he doesn’t respond. You push off the ground and walk the perimeter. Nothing’s tripped your lazers, but danger’s more likely to come from above. The lack of bugs and small creatures making noise sets you on edge, even with the elevation. According to the HUD in your helmet, the oxygen level is fine, so there should be something, even if it’s not dangerous to you. A thick tree trunk begs to be climbed, but with the first boughs a good four meters up, you’d need to use your climbing claws and you’d rather not try them on mystery sap in the middle of the night.,

Though the unease never leaves you, the rest of the shift is uneventful. Cabu says nothing when you wake him and take his place curled around the child. You’ve only just fallen asleep when something wakes you. You flip your shield over so that it’s covering the child and activate the energy barrier around it. Your vibrosword is in your hand before you’re even on your feet. 

“ _Din’kartay?_ ”

Despite not teaching him that phrase, yet, he answers, “Snake. 72 by 51. 30 degrees.”

The sound of scales on wood fills the small clearing. Your heater’s gone, tossed into the trees as a distraction. Cabu’s blaster shots light the night, but even with them and the night vision in your helmet you can barely see the giant thing. 

“Are its scales made of cortosis weave or is your blaster weak?”

“Option 3: it’s big enough the shots are like pin-pricks.”

“And you’re not using the rifle because..?”

“No interested in burying us in a cascade collapse of the canopy.”

“Fair.”

You can see it clearly, now. It slithers some six meters up, moving from tree to tree. The blaster shots must tickle, since it remains focused on you and the child and not Cabu. You step away from the shield, but the beast doesn’t track your movements. Biting the inside of your cheek, you toss an energy mine to the side. “It’s not going after heat or energy signatures, what does it want?”

“It’s striking.”

Time slows as the head, easily big enough to swallow you whole, shoots down from the trees. You raise your left hand toward the open maw and strike up with your vibrosword. The blade pierces the underside of its jaw as auxiliary teeth bite through the soft underside of your gauntlet. You send a wave of electricity through the blade and slash it down through the skull. The body thumps against the ground and pain pulses through you, starting at your left palm. You throw off your helmet and empty your stomach on the corpse. You sink to your knees.

“That wasn’t a snake.” Your vision swims. “They only have fangs.”

Cabu yanks off your gauntlet and jabs you with a kolto injection he must have stolen from you. You fall forward, holding yourself up with your good hand, your vibrosword long gone, and throw up a second time. He catches you when your body goes limp.

“Poi...son.”

“I know.” He lays you on your side, again curled around the shield. “Bikk will have the antivenom. I’ll be right back. Ka-ko- _k'oyacyi._ ” And then he’s gone.

The energy barrier on the shield deactivates and the edge lifts up from the ground. The child stares at you with round eyes and ears pointed down.

“I’ll be okay, _ad’ika._ ” You turn your head as much as you can and spit bile off to the side.

He makes a distressed noise and walks towards you, both hands outstretched.

“I’m here,” you say.

He touches the wound and everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _beskar_ \- Mandalorian iron
> 
>  _alor_ \- clan leader
> 
>  _Resol'Nare_ \- the tenets of Mandalorian life
> 
>  _mando'ade_ \- Mandalorians
> 
>  _Din’kartay?_ \- Sitrep?
> 
>  _k'oyacyi_ \- stay alive
> 
>  _ad'ika_ \- kiddo
> 
> Happy Holiday of your preference!


	5. Chapter 5

A jawa is leaning over you when you wake. You headbutt them before your brain turns on. The cover their face with both hands and complain loudly. Turning your head you see Cabu sitting with the child on his lap. “Am I hallucinating or did that jawa just threaten to use Force lightning on me?”

“His name is Bikk. And yes, he did.”

“A Force-wielding jawa. Now I’ve seen it all.” You swipe at the uncovered skin of your neck. You don’t feel wracked with poison anymore, but you definitely want a shower to wash off the sweat. “Thank you, Bikk.”

Bikk speaks another flood of jawa, gesturing fiercely between the child and your hand.

With stiff limbs, you push yourself into a sitting position. You’re on the floor of Bikk’s house. Lights are strung on thin vines and leaves as big as Bikk is tall wave at you. You squeeze your eyes shut as you try to make sense of what he’s saying. “The child healed me?”

“With the Force,” Cabu adds.

“I was getting there.” You rub your forehead. “Explains how he helped you against the mudhorn.”

“And why he keeps trying to touch my wounds.” He pets the child’s head with the lightest touch. “It tired him out last time, too.”

Bikk hands you a cup of some hot, sweet drink. You glance at Cabu and sip it at his nod. You tilt your head to the side as you listen to Bikk’s chatter. “I’m with him. It’s more likely to be Force exhaustion than just normal fatigue.”

“What difference does it make?”

Bikk gestures as he speaks.

“I don’t think there are any kyber chambers left anymore, Bikk.”

“And if there was, it’d be in the hands of the New Republic.” He sighs and leans back, resting his head against the wall. “I suspected he was a Forcer. That’s why we came. Can you teach him not to do that? Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to defeat the mudhorn alone, but you would have been quick enough with the antivenom. He shouldn’t be expending himself like this.”

You nurse the drink while Bikk explains all of the reasons that’s impossible.

“There’s no Jedi, no Sith, what am I supposed to do? Let him exhaust himself to death every time I get in trouble?”

Guilt rattles around your chest. “We’ll figure something out. We take care of our own.”

“Even I know the Force is anathema.”

“Bikk already said he can’t do it. I don’t know what all he was talking about with simulacra, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to, but we’re not helping anyone giving the kid an unwilling teacher.”

After placing the child in your lap, Cabu stands and leaves the house. He hits his head on the way out. You turn back to Bikk when he speaks to you.

“No, it hasn’t come up yet.” You stick your bare hand down the front of your cuirass and pull out a thin, leatheris cord. At the end is is a cloudy, orange crystal. You shorten the cord and place it around the child’s neck. The crystal glows softly. You slip it under his coat. “I didn’t even know why we were coming here.” 

While speaking, Bikk sits next to you. He sips from his own cup.

“He’s come around.”

Bikk snorts.

“A little.” You smile at him. “Mind if I tell _alor_ about your little place here? This is a good world for a hunt.”

Bikk gestures at his shelves of bottled liquids while he speaks.

“Of course. I can be discreet, but she isn’t called The Hound for nothing. She’ll sniff out the Force on you in a minute. I guarantee it.”

You both laugh.

\---

The child still hasn’t stirred by the time you’re back on the ship. Which is also the first time Cabu lets you hold him again. He hasn’t spoken, but his thoughts are deafeningly loud. Only when you’re flying through the hyperlanes does he speak and even then he doesn’t look at you.

“I’m not giving him up. I considered it once, so he could be with other kids, but there are enough children in my tribe.”

You stay silent, let him get all of his words out.

“We’ve been through too much for me to- I won’t just leave him behind, but with the Force- Kriff.” His hands ball into fists.

“I lost my father in the Purge, but… Not as a Mandalorian.” You stroke the child’s forehead. “He was a Forcer, a powerful one. If he had been with us when the Imperials came… _Buir_ swore she’d never let someone’s gifts separate our people again.”

“The Force is ana-”

You snap your head up to glare at him. “Do you know why? Does your _alor_ ? There is history, yes, but it is not part of the _Resol’Nare_.”

“This is the way.”

You almost punch him. Almost draw your vibrosword and run him through because how _dare_ he tell you what it is to be Mandalorian. “ _Alor,_ my mother, was chosen as Mandalore. She was to be Mandalore the Reconstructionist. She was chosen and refused the offer because to her, to the one that was chosen as the pinnacle of all that it is to be _mando’ad,_ it was more important that there be a place, a clan where those born with the gift of Force use could live without being torn from their life.

“Demagol was a monster that tortured our children and experimented on them to create a legion of Force warriors. Mandalore in that past age was too weak, the influence of the Empire and the Jedi too strong for him to stand for _aliit._ With no Sith, with no Jedi, finally we can be a people not torn asunder. The one, true anathema is giving up on your child.”

He won’t look at you.

You stand, holding the child. “Be a coward on your own time. Haalika needs his _buir_ to stand for him first and everything else second.” You shove him hard, with the Force, in case your impassioned rant wasn’t enough for him. “ _Aliit_ means no one is sent away or left behind. We stand together or not at all.”

Fire burns through your veins as you go below. The child whimpers in his sleep, feeling your anger in the familial connection you’ve made in the Force. Haalika. _Jahaal_ for his drive to heal, _ika_ for everything else. You tuck him into the bassinet and place his toys inside one by one until he’s resting under a menagerie of plush toys. You blink and realize you’ve been crying. You swipe the tear tracts away and sit with the bassinet hovering over your lap.

Cabu joins you, much sooner than you expected. He lingers by the ladder for a time before barreling forward. He drops a spherical gear handle into the bassinet with the toys. “I… Was named Din Djarin.” He wilts, the admission taking everything from him. “But I’d like to earn that name. Something parent.”

You chuckle and wipe your face again. “Bright parent. So you’ll have to pull that stick out of your ass.”

“Close enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Jahaal_ \- health
> 
> Bikk actually has "droids" that are amalgamations of vines and fruits that he powers with the Force. That's the Simulacra he was talking about.
> 
> Please let me know what you like so far :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It begins.

You slip into something of a routine. Fight off bounty hunters, rest on a low-population world, train Haalika with the Force, teach Cabu _mando’a_ and melee fighting when he’s not weaseling out of it. Lessons with Haalika are the most challenging, now that you have some kind of understanding with Cabu. The child clearly understands some Basic, but makes no attempt to speak, not even childish babble. He has a sense of object permanence, which would make him about three years old for a human, but you know from experience that not every race learns the same way.

It’s a call for advice from the clan that breaks the rhythm.

You knock on Cabu’s shoulder like it’s a door. “We need to talk.”

He gestures to the empty co-pilot’s seat. “Go ahead.”

“Not like this. I need your full attention.”

With only token resistance, he sets the autopilot and follows you below. You set up on the munitions crates you repurposed into a table and chairs weeks ago. He picks up a piece of loose paper from the crate. “You brought fingerpaints? Where do you even find paper?”

“What? There are stores with art supplies.”

He shows you the charcoal sketch under the little, three-fingered handprints. “Did you draw this?”

“Yeah, I’m still trying to come up with a design for your armor you’ll let me paint. He was helping.” You take his pleased posture as a win. “But that’s-” You cough into your elbow. You picked up a cold somewhere between the last two planets. “That’s not what we need to talk about.”

“I figured. Your _alor_ need you back?”

You shake your head. “She just spoke with Mandalore. No one’s been able to make contact with your clan since you left Nevarro.”

He leans back with casual grace. “They’re good at hiding. It’s how we survived through the Purge.”

You bite back a comment about Mandalorians not being a hiding sort of race; your armor says plenty with Nar green paint so bright it’s nearly blinding. “The prognosis isn’t good, Cabu. Now that Mandalore knows they exist, this will be seen as willful defiance. I may have my issues with how they trained you, but I don’t want them proclaimed _dar’manda._ There’s no coming back from that. They’ll be hunted as traitors.”

“They might not even know there is a Mandalore.” He leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “I was raised thinking we were the only ones. And even if they do, the leader has no idea Mandalore is looking for them.”

You open your mouth, but a hacking cough escapes you before you can speak. “Sorry, it’s worse today. I’ll have some hot _tihaar_ when we’re done. What I was going to say, is that your exploits on Nevarro could not have possibly gone unnoticed. Either they don’t think there’s a Mandalore or-”

“They’re not dead.”

“Our scouts found a lot of _beskar_ on Nevarro.”

“And that Imp was handing out a bar to everyone he gave a fob to and you’ve seen how many of those we’ve collected.” He tosses the paper onto the table.

“It’s something we have to consider.”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” He gets up so violently that the crate he’d been sitting on flips over. “I’m not going to bend the knee and join your clan just because my tribe is dead.”

A coughing fit forces you to lean over the table, gripping the edge for support. When it passes you look up at him through your eyelashes. “Give me some credit. If I thought that little of you, I’d’ve killed you and taken Haalika for my own weeks ago.” You pant and take a drink from your canteen. “Look, it’s out of my hands. _Alor_ bought you another three weeks, but if Vas doesn’t find them, or if they don’t contact Mandalore by then, they’ll be declared dead or _dar’manda_ and there’ll be nothing either of us can do about it.”

He’s shaking when he turns his back on you and walks to the ladder. “Change of plans. We’re going to find them and then you can see for yourself that they’re real _mando’ade_.”

“I never said-” You cut yourself off. Even though he can certainly hear you from the cockpit, he’s not listening. You push yourself to your feet and slip into the galley for some _tihaar_ to calm your throat.

\---

The cough doesn’t get better. Scans show only a common virus, but you take to wearing your helmet constantly to keep from spreading it. Haalika touches your cheek every time you remove it to eat, but you feel nothing and he shows no signs of Force fatigue. For ten days Cabu doesn’t speak to you and ignores the way the tension bothers Haalika. On the eleventh day, he comes below, takes his daily rations and says only, “We’re landing in three hours.”

You pack your gear, explaining each piece in _mando’a_ to Haalika. When you pick him up, he pats the cheeks of your helmet. “Thanks, _ad’ika_. I’ll be okay soon.” 

He makes a mournful sound and turns his ears down. He refuses to stay in the bassinet when you put him down. His toys do nothing to console him and he drags your boot knife twice before your frustration gets the better of you and you close the top over his sad eyes.

Planetside, you walk a meter behind Cabu, the bassinet between you like some kind of client you’re guarding. In a way, it is, but under normal circumstances you’d never take a job with someone so hostile to you.

The planet’s unfamiliar: black basalt cliffs and valleys in every direction. It’s nearly midday in the planet’s rotation, but the shadows are long and looming. Though you feel like choking, you suppress the cough with willpower and spite, just in case you’re attacked. After two hours of walking, and an hour of carrying Haalika in apology for earlier, Cabu slips into an ominous crag that looks no different from the countless others you passed.

Silent relief floods you when you see a silent Mandalorian guard with unpainted armor. They stare you down, gaze lingering on the garish designs you painted a week before, but say nothing. The clan is acting as if nothing is wrong, but you’ve seen enough clans since the Purge to know the signs of grief and tension. The gear you see is well-maintained, but raw and thin from too many repairs.

Cabu goes deep into the camp, stopping at the forge. He nods to the armorsmith. “ _Alor._ ”

“ _Su cuy’gar._ And you’ve learned our language.”

“I am learning it.” He taps on the controls in his bracer and bassinet moves forward. It stops before his _alor_ and opens. “I’ve taken the child as my own.”

“This is the way.”

You roll your eyes so hard they’d fall out if you weren’t wearing your helmet. The armorsmith looks at you only when Cabu’s introduced you. She gestures you forward.

“I am glad to see that others survived.”

You nearly bite through your tongue suppressing both the cough and the urge to tear her a new asshole about how she’s running the clan into the ground. “Mandalore seeks to rejoin you with the clans.”

She doesn’t move her head, but you feel her eyes on the gemstone emblazoned on your armor. “Mandalore the Hound?”

This _alor_ knowing yours makes the anger coil tighter in your gut. “ _Alor_ stood aside in favor of Mandalore the Patient. Meshurok _ver’alor_ Vas is hunting you.” You hold out a datachit with Mandalore’s contact codes. “It is for the best that you report soon.”

She takes the chit. “And you? _Alor’ad_?”

Your nostrils flare when she doesn’t confirm that she’ll contact Mandalore or even acknowledge the danger her clan is in. And her question is the height of rudeness. To ask a stranger about their rank -- or their parentage, which is what you assume she’s asking -- is beyond the pale. You give her a single word: “ _Ori’ramikad._ ”

“You have my thanks for assisting this one.”

You know a dismissal when you hear one. You nod and turn away. You’ll wait for Cabu outside. You need to hack out the congestion in your lungs away from the religious zealots that put so little care into raising him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _mando'a_ \- the Mandalorian language
> 
>  _tihaar_ \- really strong, really disgusting alcoholic spirits
> 
>  _Su cuy’gar_ \- hello
> 
> _ver’alor _\- second in command, ranks can be a little fuzzy (see: non-existent) in some clans, but if nothing else, there's usually a designated person to inherit the clan.__
> 
> ___Alor’ad_ \- captain, but it literally translates to child of the leader_ _
> 
> ___Ori’ramikad_ \- special forces_ _
> 
> __Hey guys! I am super excited to post this chapter! Please let me know what you think._ _


	7. Chapter 7

You recognize the sound of Cabu’s steps as he leaves the hidden camp. You’re on your knees in the black sand, helmet beside you. Your breath is unnaturally even as you cling to calm with the help of the Force. Despite your best efforts your hands shake where they’re held in front of you.

“ _Alor_ called Mandalore. She feared he would try to change us.” His armor clinks behind your back. “I didn’t tell her about Haalika’s gift. It won’t matter until we get the hunters off our backs. Then… I will accept the Hound’s offer.”

Your breath shudders and your eyes are crusted with salt when you blink.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” The sharp edge of his tone can’t touch you. He grabs your shoulder and pulls your torso back.

You stare up into his visor with tears leaking from your eyes. You hold up your cupped hands to him, like you’re offering a trophy to the ancestors. Your hands are flecked with light pink petals that darken at the tips. A series of short, sharp coughs leave another dangling from your lips.

“That’s nerium.”

How can a T-visor show fear? The thought makes you dizzy. You wipe the petal from your lips with a trembling hand. “I need to go home.”

\---

You stagger through the camp to the medtent. The head doctor is Catra, warrior from _alor_ ’s generation with a single child. You were best friends growing up, but you haven’t gone on a hunt with Kyra since she had her first child. Catra knows you as well as _alor,_ without any blood sympathy. Her armor is painted such a dark blue it’s nearly black with a human skeleton overlaid in white. It’s hideous and you love it.

“What did you do this time? And don’t think I didn’t see the report about the, how did you call it? Not-snake?” She keeps one hand on her waist as she directs you to a medical cot.

You pull a fang and tooth out of a belt pouch and drop them on a durasteel table before laying down. The teeth are for experiments. You have a long strip of cured skin as a trophy. After pushing those to the side, you drop the withered flowers you coughed up the night before. The isn’t wracking your frame only because you’re holding it back with a combination of will and Force techniques. You’re thankful for the armor stand close enough to set your gear on without getting up.

“So what’s wrong? And thanks for the dead oleander, my stores are fine.”

“I coughed those up.”

Catra glances between you and the petals, but knows you well enough not to doubt it. She scraps them into a specimen jar with metal tool. “So that little cold of yours is something more interesting. Has it happened more than once?”

“Once a day, four days, but I’m suppressing the cough.” You fight the urge to rub your throat.

“With medicine?”

“No.” Your breaths wheeze in and out of your chest as you answer the barrage of questions. Your lymph nodes hurt when pressed, but aren’t swollen. No fevers, only light flushing after a coughing fit. Your lung capacity is far better than it feels, which is reassuring. Catra gives you an injection full of contrast and wheels in a series of imaging devices. You drift off, coughing weakly every now and then.

At some point _alor_ comes in with Cabu trailing behind her. He freezes at the sight of you in only greaves and sabatons and abruptly turns to face the wall. You’re fully covered, just not in armor. It makes you laugh hard enough that you cough up two more petals. They make your lips burn, but that may be more from knowing they’re toxic than the toxicity itself. You wipe them away and hold your hand out for Catra to take them.

“ _Alor._ ”

“Catra.” They exchange nods. “How’s the damage?”

“There’s no real root system. It’s as if the stems were grafted to the inside of her lungs. We’re looking at bronchoscopic surgery, given the number of plants, I’d estimate a two week recovery before she’s back on full duty. Gonna have to wait on the biopsies before she’s on babysitting rotation again. Never seen anything like it, but it’s not the strangest thing to sit on my table.”

 _Alor_ touches the back of Cabu’s elbow, an echani gesture she picked up from Vas, not that he would know what it was. “You and Haalika will have to leave in the next five days. Ty’lk will set up a rendezvous when she’s recovered.”

At his nod, she takes a hold of Catra’s arm and leads her into the office for a private discussion. You want to laugh at the blatant attempt at matchmaking and wonder what in the galaxy he possibly could have told your mother to give her that kind of idea. Neither of you are eager to break the silence -- he won’t even look at you. You cough into the crook of your elbow. “...Can you grab me a blanket? Straight ahead, second cupboard from the bottom on the left.”

Shuffling steps take him to the cupboard and he holds the blanket up like a privacy screen as he approaches. You snatch it from his grasp and wrap it around your torso, pulling it up to your chin. You hadn’t felt that ill, but the heat and weight of it bring a comfortable lassitude. A contented hum breaks the silence and you glance over at him. His helmet is tilted down and his shoulders are around his ears, screaming bashfulness.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine on your own.”

“Haalika will miss you.”

“I’ll call on the holo. Supposedly, distance doesn’t matter when it comes to Force techniques, so I can keep up his training… Maybe. I haven’t tried it before.”

“He’ll appreciate it.”

You can read between the warmth of his tone and his words. He’s gotten used to you. Maybe even fond. You smile. Catra must have put a kind of sedative in the injection with the contrast because the cough seems impossibly far away. “Be sure to save me any interesting foods you find.”

“How do you fit in your armor with how much you eat?”

Even your laugh doesn’t start a coughing fit. “It is a secret held only by Mandalorians capable of bearing children.”

“Do you have any?”

“Children?”

He nods.

“Nah.” You cuddle up under the blanket. “I take a lot of shifts with the children, but I get too easily frustrated. Maybe in a few years. Keeping your _sheb_ out of trouble is enough babysitting for me right now.”

He tilts his head to the side and lifts his shoulders. You’re pretty sure he’s smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nerium - The scientific word for oleander
> 
>  _sheb_ \- butt
> 
> We are now deep into Hanahaki Disease territory! For those unaware, it's a fandom trope from Asia (China, Japan, Korea, thereabouts) that is as old as fandom itself, hence the vague origin. Seeds of unrequited feelings go in the body of the victim and bloom into flowers, continuing to grow until the feelings are returned or the victim dies. Typically, surgical/magical removal results in the loss of _all _feelings towards the target (or memories of the target), but I've decided to forgo that aspect for this fic.__
> 
> __In terms of flower meanings, oleander means "Beware!"_ _
> 
> __Anyway, thanks for reading!_ _
> 
> __As a final note, I love Cara and Omera (and even male!Reader and Self-Insert)! Ship what you want, create what you want, live your best life and have fun in fandom!_ _


	8. Chapter 8

The best holoterminal in the camp is in the command tent. _Alor_ is kind enough to let you use it for the first time. You’ve got your armor on, but with the cough suppressed, your helmet rests next to you. “ _Su’cuy_.”

“ _Su’cuy._ I expected you to call two days ago. Haalika was worried.”

 _Haalika, sure,_ you think. “And yet you answered.”

“He can’t reach the terminal.”

You let him see your smile, but it fades quickly. “The surgery didn’t work.”

A beat passes, long enough you think the call might have dropped out, since he doesn’t move. “How does a surgery not work.” He says it like a denial, not a question.

“Plenty of ways, but in this case… Catra removed the blooms first, but when she went to cut out the stems, new flowers had grown in their place. Different flowers. Something called verbena. Still pink, though.” You force out a laugh.

“What’s your prognosis?” You don’t know what he’s feeling. You don’t know what you’re feeling.

“The cough is pretty mild, now. Catra’s reaching out to her counterparts in other clans for if anyone else has seen it. _Alor…_ might have a more arcane contact. One of dad’s friends.” You scratch your cheek. It doesn’t itch, it just… “We’re going to step up your lessons in _mando’a,_ too. Can’t have Haalika outpacing you.”

“Fair.” His shoulders relax. 

“There’s an interclan mission soon. And there’ll be a big Battle Circle stroke festival. It’ll be a good opportunity for people to transfer into your clan, but you should come, too, just to… Relax. No bounty hunter would dare show their face, no matter how much the client is offering.”

“We’ll be there.”

“Good. Alright, let’s start.”

The transition from language lesson to Force practice is easy, since Haalika climbs into Cabu’s lap before it’s his turn. You can’t move anything through the holo, at least not yet, but you don’t feel bad about it. Children just need time and attention, anyway. You’ve had plenty of less productive lessons with mostly human children that are relatively more advanced than him anyway.

Kyra comes in before you’re done, but when the itching in your throat is getting too strong to ignore. “Sorry. I thought you’d be done by now. I… Well, can you get me once you’re finished? I don’t want to put this off for too long.”

“Don’t worry about it.” You say your goodbyes with plenty of air kisses and then end the call. You stand and stretch your arms over your head. “All yours.”

“Thanks,” Kyra says, though she doesn’t move to take your place. “Hey, uh… I just wanted to say that I didn’t ask to be on the big job.”

You pick up your helmet and look over your shoulder at her. “The interclan gig? You’re on it? Congratulations. That’s a big honor. You deserve it.”

“I- That is, thanks. I just thought since you’re always meeting with other clans and winning Battle Circles and-”

“You’re a phenomenal tactician. I’m melee muscle and skills most of our people are happy to pretend don’t exist. You getting a spot doesn’t take an opportunity away from me, but even if it did, you’re _ori’vod_.”

“Really?” Kyra doesn’t cry, she never does, but her mouth trembles. “I mean, it’s been years since the last time we- And ever since _alor_ adopted Vas-”

“I love Vas. And he’s great, but no one could ever replace you. My heart’s big enough for all of the _aliit_ and then some.”

Kyra pulls you into a hug and if you weren’t in full armor, you’d have some cracked ribs. She may be a tactician and sniper, but she doesn’t skimp out on strength training. “I love you, too. I know I’ve been focused on my kids, but-”

“That’s what we do. I know. And I love them, too, even if they pull my hair more than every other kid combined.”

She covers her mouth with one hand. “Oh no, still?”

“You know how it is. If it makes _alor_ laugh they never stop.”

“I’ll talk to them.” 

“It’s fine. I like being the favorite aunt.”

\---

The medtent is becoming uncomfortably familiar. You played hide and seek here a few times with Kyra when you were brats. That ended with the Purge, when the beds were full at all hours and the _yaim_ moved every other month. As it is, you sit on the bed swinging your legs while you wait for the imaging results to come through.

“Did you hear the news about your new friend?”

You snap your head around to see your brother Vas standing at the entrance. He’s wearing his helmet, but you know it’s hiding bone-white echani skin with sharp, black tattoos covering almost half his face that no one but family ever sees.

“I had a holocall this morning, but he didn’t mention anything, no.”

“He wouldn’t have known. I just got it from Mandalore himself.”

You roll your eyes. Trust Vas to ask impossible questions. “What is it, then?”

“Not good.” He steps in and hands you a datapad. “It looks like the Imp he met on Nevarro was just a middle man. The name behind everything? Moff Gideon.”

Your nostrils flare and you stare down at the datapad with fresh intensity. “That would explain how they had so much _beskar_ to throw around, but he was supposed to be dead. What does it take for murder to stick with these _demagolkase_?”

“Whoa, don’t start sparking. Our source isn’t completely sure, but that’s what it’s looking like. After Kyra and the others get back from the big job, we’re going to be planning something for the Imp, whether or not it’s him.” He touches the back of your elbow.

“He might have been the one that killed dad.”

Vas never knew your dad, was adopted years after he died, but he knows, he feels it with the sharp downward tilt of his chin and the stiffness in his grip. You know he truly feels it, too, if he’s overcoming his childhood training to show emotion so openly with his body language. “I was going to invite you, but in that case, it might be better if you work on the back end.”

“She’s not in a state to be going anywhere, Vas,” Catra interrupts. She wheels in a screen with the imaging results. “These new flowers are more prolific, even if they’re not creating such a violent reaction. I know you were looking forward to the Battle Circle, kid, but I’m gonna have to restrict you to one fight. Two, if you win.”

“I’ll win.”

“You usually do. Hound’s special contact hasn’t gotten back to us yet and I’m running out of things to try. Once the festival is over, we’re going to try some, let’s call it interesting, blood dialysis. We’ll strip the CO2 from your blood before it’s released back into the lungs and see if that has any effect. These flowers are hardly natural, but it’s worth a shot.”

You rub the front of your chest, trying to remember long-past anatomy lessons. “How invasive is that?”

“Very. Even if it works, you’ll be bedridden for a week, minimum.”

“But I feel-”

She shoves the screen closer to your face. “You’re just getting used to the feeling. Your condition is worsening.”

“Right. Right. Thank you, Catra. I know this is frustrating.”

“It’s tricky, but we won’t lose you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Su cuy_ \- Hi
> 
>  _aliit_ \- Clan, but more like family
> 
>  _ori'vod_ \- best sibling
> 
>  _yaim_ \- clan home
> 
>  _demagolkase_ \- a pejorative, close to "evil bastards"
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you're ready for the angst :3c


	9. Chapter 9

The festival around the Battle Circle is loud enough you should have ear plugs, but you wouldn’t be you if you did. You smile at unfamiliar sigils on the armor around you. There are a handful of warriors with a purple gear emblazoned on their chestplates. Others have an unfamiliar bird on their helmets. You’ve seen Kyram’galaar’s white silhouette already, so you know they haven’t simply had an upgrade. Catra was kind enough to let you marinate in cough suppressants and painkillers before coming, so no one suspects the illness that weighs you down. Cabu hasn’t arrived yet and it would be a lie to say that you didn’t want to wait for him to show off, but as _ver’alor_ Vas has obligations and can’t wait all night. 

You’re sitting on the railing around the arena when Vas pats your lower back. “Ready, kid?”

You laugh and hit his shoulder with your fist. “I’m older than you, brat.”

“Well if you’re scared, we don’t have to go.”

Arching your back, you left out a falcon’s scream that wouldn’t be possible without Force trickery. The warriors around you that recognize the sound yell “Oya!” and beat their chests. Your mother isn’t the only one with an animal moniker. Vas enters the arena first and picks out two vibroswords. He swings them around to get their weight and throws one at you as you jump down from the rail. His armor is a harsh Corellian yellow on black to disguise the fact that his plates are broken up into smaller scales that allow him greater freedom of movement.

The chanting turns rhythmic at the first clash of blades. Vas’ strikes are bolstered by his echani physiology and some twenty years of daily training on Eshan, while yours are tinged with the Force. Without your helmet, there’s a big enough gap in the _beskar_ for your enhanced awareness to spread across the arena. Vas is a shadow, a gap, a blank space to that sense and you know his style well-enough to gauge his intent from the emptiness.

He kicks at your ankles and strikes with a spin of his entire body. He hates his birthplace and all it represents, but that doesn’t stop him from using their ways of silent speaking. A simple question comes from his moves: is this an exhibition or a spar? The fact that you only get one shot, one deadly dance of blades when usually you’d fight until you fainted, hangs heavy between you. You answer with a kick to his chest and a backflip. It looks impressive, but the weaknesses are glaring to anyone who uses close combat as their specialty. You have more fun showing off than prowling tight circles with your brother as you wait for an opening. He beats his chest with an open palm to show he understands and you grin so wide your face hurts.

You exchange high strikes. Vas uses only the strength necessary to get a shower of sparks from the glowing plasma on your blades. His lithe, Echani style makes your blows look heavier and sharper: a viper sparring against a hawk and all of the power from its dives. You height on your jumps is impressive to anyone used to the weight of full _beskar_ and you remember the one, thrilling time you tossed Aran across the practice grounds in full armor because he teased you about your paint job. 

The assembled warriors chant either “Demon” for Vas or “ _Galaar_ ” for you, but the energy behind the voices empowers you more than acknowledgement of your skill and practice. Vas locks his vibrosword against yours just above your thigh and you shove him back with a sweep that dislodges something in your chest. Without breaking the rhythm you’ve built, you spit out blood and petals into the sand. Your counter is an overhead slash that makes the vibroswords whine with strain on contact. Even though you usually go twice as long, Vas takes a knee. You want to shout at him, make him stand and fight. You’re a warrior and you won’t let some sickness win, but you’re not a child. You throw your head back and let out your raptor’s scream again. 

Cabu is outside the arena when you leave it. It takes him just long-enough to react to your approach that you know he’s impressed. You clap his upper arm and then touch the back of his elbow. Before you can say anything, warriors from the clan with the gear are handing you hot cups of steaming _tihaar._ You chug yours like a true victor and crow again, though your throat protests it will be the last one. Grinning from ear to ear, you pick up your helmet and clip it to your belt. 

“Careful, _Ca’buir,_ that’s real _tihaar._ ”

“I know what _tihaar_ is.”

“This isn’t like the weak kark you’ve got on the Razor Crest. This isn’t a taste you want lingering in your straw if-”

“I can handle it.” He sips with enough force that there’s a loud slurping noise before he coughs with a pained groan every Mandalorian knows well.

You laugh so hard you lose your breath, but you snatch the cup away from him before he can try to prove himself with the rest of it. Maybe you’ve long since burned off your tastebuds, but finishing his drink just gets another round of cheers and jeers from the crowd you swim through.

“That’s not alcohol. That’s condensed sweat from someone’s boot.”

You cackle into the night air and knock your head against his helmet, arm thrown over his shoulders. “I did warn you.”

“That taste gives people nightmares.”

“Death never tasted so sweet!” The warmth in your chest isn’t a warning for once and you let it sink into your bones. “Where’s _cyar’ika_?”

“Kyra and her spouse are watching him. Said she needed a rest after the job.” He leads out of the dense crowd around the fighting arenas. 

“You’re late.”

“I took the kid to look at small armor sets.”

You perk up at that, eyes bright under the torches. “Oh yeah? Anything for the ears?” You put a hand next to your temple and wave it around like a satellite readjusting its position.

“You’re drunk.” He chuckles. “There are some designs for half-human, half-twileks that looked promising. I got the schematics, but then Kyra’s spouse lost his mind saying how insulting it was to give Nouj premade schematics.”

“I woulda just let you find out the hard way.”

“Why make them available if it’ll only insult the armorsmiths?”

“Not everyone’s as good as Nouj and your _alor_. Besides, the failure point is completely different with his ears,” you wiggle your hand again, “on the side rather than poking out the back.”

“You’re very drunk.”

“I’m a little drunk.”

“I’m taking you back to the Crest.”

You dig in your heels and he only manages to drag you three steps before your boots catch enough on the mud. “I’m not gonna sleep on your stinky ship on a festival night.”

“You chose to take over cleaning the ship. If it stinks, it’s a smell you put there.”

You shove a finger in his face. “I haven’t been on the Crest in _weeks._ If you haven’t cleaned it since then, it stinks bad enough the ancestors are holding their noses.”

“I thought you were unreasonable when sober.”

“ _Ne’johaa!_ I have a set up in tent city already.”

He sighs with his helmet and lets you stagger the way to tent city. Though he does shove a cup of water in your hand before you find your bedrolls. Just after you start looking ridiculous, you remember you marked it on the map in your HUD. Despite your utter lack of coordination, it probably hadn’t been a good idea to mix _tihaar_ with your meds, slipping on your helmet is as natural as breathing and you lead the rest of the way with even steps. With dramatics comparable only to your father and twin brother, you collapse onto your bed roll. There’s a small one for Haalika that will go unused and you’re asleep before thinking to tell Cabu which of the scattered ones around you is his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Galaar_ \- hawk
> 
>  _cyar’ika_ \- (little) dear one
> 
>  _Ne’johaa_ \- shut up
> 
> \---
> 
> Please don't mix alcohol and medication!
> 
> So [here's my reference for flower language! ](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12SK10SXQWj4lhpkPG9tYbDK69x1JuuZ1ldl8Kh7Z9C8/edit#gid=0)(sources inside)
> 
> A SINGLE source from that link has pink verbena as representing Family Union, which was my intention. However, several sources listed verbena (general) as "sensibility" which also suits for a Mandalorian.
> 
> Just an FYI, but the next chapters deal with assisted suicide in the case where the person has a terminal illness. This content may be triggering to some people, so please practice self-care and stop reading if it's too upsetting. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal ideation or self-harm, please reach out! I've been there and it's awful, but you're not alone and you don't deserve any suffering you're feeling. There are resources out there to help you. 
> 
> Personally, I can offer you nothing but kind words and cute pictures of my cats, but I am more than happy to. You can reach out to me here, on twitter as @duveraun and on tumblr as @tk-duveraun


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Just an FYI, but the next chapters deal with assisted suicide in the case where the person has a terminal illness. This content may be triggering to some people, so please practice self-care and stop reading if it's too upsetting. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal ideation or self-harm, please reach out! I've been there and it's awful, but you're not alone and you don't deserve any suffering you're feeling. There are resources out there to help you.**
> 
> **Personally, I can offer you nothing but kind words and cute pictures of my cats, but I am more than happy to. You can reach out to me here, on twitter as @duveraun and on tumblr as @tk-duveraun**

Strategy and tactics have never really been your thing. You keep a text recommended by Ty’lk up on a screen by your medical cot while Catra hooks you up to the dialysis machine. The meddroid asks repeatedly if she’s sure the settings are correct - stripping the CO2 from the bloodstream isn’t exactly a standard procedure. You suppose they usually use some kind of ventilator, though now that you think about it, that just gets more oxygen in, right? There’s a reason you carry kolto injections, bandages and little else.

“Alright, kid. I’ve got the imaging up in my office, so we’ll see what happens with your flower garden, hmm?” She dims the overhead lights and leaves you to studying. 

Your neck protests be turned at a right angle, but you’re not sure you should turn over with the wires and tubes in your torso. You could have asked, should have, but this entire situation has thrown you off balance in the worst way. You’ve missed your father, yes, but never yearned for him with the kind of desperation you have now. The gentle humming from the machines lulls you to sleep.

At first you think you’re dreaming. There’s a deep well of calm pulling you down, down into freezing depths. Then a thought hits you. A truth you’ve never been so certain of in you entire life. It’s clearer, even, than your name.

_I’m dying._

A tear falls from your eye. Its track is the only thing you can feel. Trapped in a body locked with weakness, you can only stare at the ceiling of the medtent as the darkness at the edge of your vision slowly pulls inward and takes the rest of the light. In a distant sort of way, you know the lights are back at full brightness, though you see only a dim cone. The machines beep wildly, alerts and alarms blaring, shutting off and restarting with noises as far away as the bottom of a vast lake. Yes, underwater, that’s what it feels like. You blink and when your eyes open there’s no color left in the galaxy.

_I’m dying…_

\---

You wake again, undoubtedly alive. Every centimeter of your body feels sunburned, from your armpits to between your toes. You almost wish your body had been dumped in the sands of Tatooine because then you could fight the Sandpeople and go down swinging rather than wasting away in bed.

 _Alor_ is seated at your side when you sluggishly turn your head. Her green eyes are dark and cloudy as a stormy sky. Behind her back stands a short man in black robes and a decorated mask. He wouldn’t come up to your shoulder if you could stand, but he’s no less intimidating for his stature.

“Uncle… You found… Uncle.”

 _Alor_ takes your hand and squeezes it. “No. He felt you dying and came on his own.”

“I was under the impression, what from your rather exhaustive yelling when last we met, that you had no interest in further contact. I hid myself as much for your pleasure as my safety.” He crosses his arms over his chest, revealing the deep green inner lining of his robes. 

“It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”

“For all the good it’ll do us.” He reaches over _Alor_ ’s shoulder and brushes your forehead. “There’s nothing I can do. I doubt there was anything I could have done if I’d arrived earlier. I’ve never seen a Force parasite like this before. The best I could have done happened three weeks ago without my intervention.”

“Wha?” Three weeks ago you were at the Battle Circle.

“You died,” he says, his voice as hard as _beskar._ “Your doctor reversed the technique and managed to revive you, but the parasite is growing back with a vengeance.”

“The flowers?”

“Yes. They are deeply woven with your Life Force. When they died, they took you with them and when the doctor brought you back, they came as well.”

“Three weeks ago?” Your voice fails on the last word, but he seems to understand.

“Catra had to put you in a medically-induced coma for your organs to recover. Aucht put you in Force quarantine, so finding whomever did this to you won’t help, either.” _Alor_ brings your hand to her cheek. You can feel the wetness there, but you’re too weak to react to it.

“From my study, I can only surmise it’s an attempt at a Force Sensitive clone gone horrifically wrong in the homunculus stage. The flowers are simply a symptom of the parasite that dwells deeper within you.” He lowers his hand over your face and you feel the ancient curses in your blood respond. “You can’t see it, but I assure you the marks on your face are patchy and distorted. For something to go so deep… I would need a lifetime to study it. I am sorry.”

You close your eyes with the feeling of the marks fading. As much as you hate them, you’re glad you can’t see the wreck they’ve become. It takes all of your strength to ball your hands into fists. “I don’t want to die like this. Weak and helpless in bed.”

Pain streaks across _alor_ ’s face and she lets it show. “I know, _ad._ I called your brothers. Vas was already planning a hunt for your birthday. He said he’ll move it up.”

“Thank you.” Tears leak from your eyes in a rush. You gasp from the ferocity of it. “I know it’s selfish to ask for.”

“There’s no shame in wanting to face the inevitable head on.” The word ‘inevitable’ nearly breaks her.

Aucht clears his throat and rubs the surface of his mask. “I’ll speak with the doctor on if she’ll want any assistance from me in preparing you.” He turns to leave, but pauses. “Fox would be proud of everything you’ve done.”

Emotions coil in your chest, wrapping around the flowers and their life-stealing blooms. “Dad would have known what to do.”

“Don’t get sucked into that wormhole, _cyare_. Fox’s certainty he could beat anything is what got him killed. There’s no honor in taking foolish risks.” Your mother wears the old wound on her face for once and you’ve never felt like such an… adult.

“I’ll try. I miss him so much.”

“So do I. Aucht is right, though. He would be proud of you. Especially for your work with the little ones.”

You let the thought bubble up, let it sit in your throat before saying it. “I want Cabu to come, too. I can’t make Aran or Vas…”

“I’ve already called him in. He doesn’t know why. It’s not my place to invite him, but he knows you’re not well.”

“Not well is putting it nicely.”

“You’re my first child to go, love. What do you want me to say? That I’m losing something I can never get back? That it’s like watching Fox pack his weapons all those years ago? That at least there was a chance he’d come back? He was sick, too, _ad._ He wouldn’t have let you and Aran grow up without him if there’d been another option. He couldn’t save himself and if he were here, he’d waste your last days searching for a cure that won’t come instead of being with you.”

Though it takes all of your strength, you lean over the edge of the bed and press your tear-stained face to her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _cyare_ \- dear one (can be both romantic and platonic)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the pain :D


	11. Chapter 11

You almost feel like yourself, but you’re not sure if you even remember what it felt like before there were flowers infesting your lungs and scenting your every breath. It’s almost poetic, whatever this parasite is. Aucht is gone. Some combination of fear of catching it and pain at seeing his dead best friend’s child die. You wonder if he would have trained you, in another galaxy, but you suppose in another galaxy, your father would have done it himself.

The children are going through their melee routines and you’re halfheartedly making notes to hand off to their instructors. They look adorable in their piecemeal armor and your heart hurts at the realization that you won’t ever get to see Haalika like that. Won’t ever get to intentionally make him wear something silly and say there was simply nothing else in his size. At least you don’t cry. If anything, you just feel empty.

Cabu plops Haalika in your lap before you can drift too far down the hole. The child coos happily and pats your cheeks. You smile for him and rub your cheek on the top of his head.

Cabu sits next to you, but at an angle so he can see you while pretending to watch the children. “ _Alor_ didn’t say anything. Just that I needed to talk to you.”

“Vas and Aran are coming on a hunt with me. There’s a giant acklay that’s been terrorizing the villagers on Huul in the Klein system.” You turn off the datapad in your hands and toss it to the side. Your breathe whistles around the flowers in your chest. They’re almond blossoms now, a pink so pale as to be nearly white. “I would appreciate it if you came.”

“Of course,” he says so easily, without a ghost of hesitation. Haalika turns his big eyes on him, as if he’s surprised.

It feels like your throat is full of branches, but you know it’s just emotion. Defeat, sorrow, the deep fear of missing out. “Because of how you were taught our ways, I need to clarify-”

He grabs your hand, his curling over the back. “I know.”

You blink against the wetness in your eyes. “It’s selfish of me to ask. There’s no cure and everything we try makes it worse and-”

He tightens his grip and turns his helmet fully toward you. “It’s not selfish to want to live as a warrior. I’ll be with you, at the end.”

“I’m sorry.” You choke the words out with a sob.

“I know what it’s like to have people disappear. I want to be there.”

Tears stream down your cheeks in earnest. “I don’t want to go.”

He presses the front of his T-visor against your temple, whispers words for only you. “ _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la_.” He wraps an arm around your waist, pulls you as close as the _beskar_ allows. “Not gone,” he repeats in Basic. “Never gone.”

\---

Catra is stone-faced as she lays out the materials you’ll need for the final hunt. Vas is with you, Aran unable to look your mortality in eye. Final hunts are usually couched with celebration and feasts honoring the life-long accomplishments of the warrior. They usually have more warning. They’re usually held for the older generation. You’re not the youngest ever. Meshurok has had a handful of chiss over the years and some races you don’t even know the names of because they didn’t matter.

It may be arrogance, but you feel like yours hurts the most. It’s not missing limbs or failing organs forcing you out. It’s plants. Not even carnivorous ones, but cute pink flowers you’ve seen in adoption and wedding arrangements.

A blue bag full of injectors is first. “You’re familiar with the painkillers and cough suppressants by now. I’ve been ramping up your dosages so you’ll be used to the amount you’ll need for the hunt.”

You glance inside the bag and then drag it to the side. “Explains why everything’s a little blue.”

Vas snorts and elbows you. You elbow him back.

“Alright kids, pay attention.” Catra holds out a parcel that is a blinding Nar green with stripes of electric purple. “This is the Forbidden Serum. Use it improperly and I’ll dump you down a garbage chute, got it? You take it an hour before you start and then you have six hours to complete the hunt.”

Your hand shakes as you reach for it, so Vas takes the parcel and throws it in the bag with the others. You know it’s only his echani physiology that leaves his body unaffected.

Next, Catra unloads a clear pouch of odd-looking pink gel. She prods it, checking the consistency before pushing it toward you. “This is Atmosphere Gel. Vas, you’re going to have to intubate her and fill her lungs with this. It’ll hold the flowers in stasis for six hours, so you won’t have to worry about the parasite growing.”

Vas lifts the pouch and turns it. “Is this a new recipe? I thought humans couldn’t… Well, let’s say, Atmosphere Gel isn’t exactly pleasant.”

Catra’s laugh is almost a bark. “I’d guessed you’d tried it back in the day.”

“The Matriach force-fed it to me and threw me out the airlock, if you can call that trying it.” He drops it in the bag. “Point stands. Last I knew, humans still drowned with it anyway.”

She hands over a final injector, this one a sickening orange that looks green when the light shifts. “I like to call this one Brain Juice. It’ll override the drowning reflex. It’s a derivative of Arkanian research just like the Forbidden Serum.”

Vas shakes his head as he inspects it. “Thank the ancestors we’re enemies with the Echani or we’d be downing these potions constantly.”

“Mmhmm. The Juice lasts eight hours to give you some wiggle room with the gel. Now, if…” Catra has to pause to collect herself. “Once you’re injured you might cough it all up anyway. Drugs can only do so much to fight the human survival instinct. The parasite might grow at that point, but it’ll be ancillary to the hunt and everyone knows it.”

“If I’m already using Atmosphere Gel, we might as well’ve gone to Manaan,” you say since it’s all you can get out without screaming. You poke the pouch of gel. It has a very satisfying squish.

“There’s nothing worth hunting on Manaan,” Vas scoffs.

“Alright. No one ever likes this part, but this is one tradition even the Hound can’t get me to throw out. E-pack. Who gets it?”

You look at the floor and imagine you can feel a stem puncture through the delicate structures of your lungs. An emergency pack in case you fail to get gored enough to actually die. Not to give you a quiet release, every Mandalorian has at least fifteen ways to do that on their person at all times. No, to bring you back to shamefully try again or be too weak to and die in a medical cot anyway.

“I’ll take it,” Vas says into the depthless silence. “I can’t make Aran-”

“Cabu’ll want it. Said he’s lost enough people in the worst way.”

“If that’s the case, he might-”

You snap your head up to stare at your brother. “Do you actually want it? Because I don’t want to put that on you, either. You’re my _brother,_ Vas. I trust him. Let him have the sword of the Preserver.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la._ \- Not gone, marching far away. A Mandalorian mourning phrase.
> 
> So! A lot of notes.
> 
> 1) I use a lot of Echani headcanons in my works. Also, "Echani" refers to those that are culturally Echani and "echani" refers to those who are genetically echani.
> 
> 2) Breathable liquids and such actually exist! Humans have been experimenting with them since the early 1900s and some of the early experiments are both wild and horrifying, so research at your own risk!
> 
> 3) I [made a discord](https://discord.gg/ynkttur)! If you check my /works page, you'll see a lot of what I write is SW or Mandalorian junk, so come chill if you'd like. (And share your OCs and your fics and whatever ya got.)
> 
> 4) Yes, I made Mandalore the Preserver Damocles. Sue me.
> 
> Tune in tomorrow for the finale!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

Between the Forbidden Serum, Brain Juice and Atmo Gel, you are torn between completely unable to focus and hyperfocus. You can see individual veins on individual leaves on individual trees, but you can’t count to ten without losing track of your feet. The acklay’s carapace is covered with spines that are each two centimeters in length. Everything on Huul bears the signs of its presence. The landing pad is scored from end to end, the landing gear of Vas’ ship sinks into the cuts.

The first town they visit is the erstwhile capital only in so much as they have interplanetary comms and rows of market stalls for travelling merchants. You walk through with your lungs full of gel and the feeling that you should feel afraid, but can’t. Vas does the talking and you walk with Cabu and Aran at your shoulders. You can feel your twin’s tears as if they’re on your own cheeks. There’s an animal whimper in your throat, but you shove it down to live with the plants.

When you enter the forest where the beast lives, you touch the scarring on the trees. You wonder if the spines will be what does it. If they’ll tear through the soft gaps in your armor. Maybe it’ll be the heavy jaw with its diamond-hard, needle-sharp teeth. Its venom can’t touch _beskar,_ but it’ll eat right through everything else.

Aran squeezes your hand before you split into formation. 

The acklay doesn’t have a proper lair. The villagers guess that it was a Czerka experiment gone wrong -- or right, knowing Czerka -- because it lacks natural instincts. You take point and it feels so unnervingly natural. In your generation, you’re the best melee fighter with full armor. You’re used to drawing the beast’s aggression and fighting it head-on. Vas is arguably a better fighter, but with his flexible armor, he’s better-suited to slash and run assaults. Vibrosword raised, you stalk forward through the fresh tracks. 

A poison-yellow limb strikes out from the trees. You parry the leg, even though it’s as long as you are tall. The fight is a blur. You smell burning chiton as blaster shots wear away at the carapace. You block the leg with your sword and shear off a shower of spines that tink against your helmet like water drops. In that instant, you wish for rain, for a cover of soft clouds and the irony of life-giving water spilling around you in the end. 

Your blade sinks deep where the neck connects to the beast’s torso.

One of its back legs digs into your side in response.

Your vision blacks out for a moment and when you can see again, Vas has severed the leg at the joint and it stays there, pierced through your armor. Aran whoops out a wolf’s howl and the wounded beast staggers after him on five legs. When Vas’ armor disappears into the trees, you sink to your knees.

It doesn’t hurt as you pat yourself down around the injury.

“Don’t pull that out,” Cabu says.

It makes you want to laugh, so you do, masking the squelch that sounds when you jerk the leg out. Despite the Forbidden Serum in your veins, your hands shake as you lower the rest of your body to the ground. On your back, you can see a beautiful sliver of blue sky. Clumsy fingers unlatch your helmet and you use a burst of strength to push it off. The sky really is lovely, even if there’s not a cloud to cry for you.

You hear Cabu get down on his knees and then he pulls you head into his lap. After an eternity, he says, “You fought well.”

For all the good it won’t do, you hold the hole in your side. It still doesn’t hurt. “Thank you for being here. I know it was selfish to ask.”

His fingertips ghost across your cheek and you sink into the heavy lassitude that’s been calling you for weeks. You blink your eyes open at a series of familiar sounds. You press your bloody fingers against his T-visor as he starts to lift it. “Nn… No. None of that. Don’t give up who you are.”

“That’s not it.” He pulls it off and presses your hand to his bare cheek.

“You’re beautiful,” you say because you can’t _not._

His face is wet, tears smeared around and now a splotch of your blood. “I knew long ago it was never the Creed that stopped me.” His grip on your hand hurts, like nothing else can right now. “It was a shield, protecting me. If no one came in, they could never leave forever.” He closes his eyes and fresh tears dilute the blood on his cheek. “And yet here we are.”

A tear slips down across your temple. “Mandalorians are nev… Never really gone.”

“ _Ni partayli, gar darasuum_ ,” he says. Words you taught him so recently, but that come from the very depths of his soul.

You smile because it’s one last thing you can give him. “That’s right.”

He bends over, presses his forehead to yours. His tears drip onto your face like your blood drips onto the earth below. He can’t release your hand, but he grabs you with his free one. Holds you tight like he can keep you from the ancestors.

You’re dying.

You should feel terrible.

Instead it feels like you’re finally home.

You want to keep smiling until… until… until your entire body jerks with the force of a cough. The next thing you know, you’re in the recovery position, spitting out Atmosphere Gel even though you should still have a few hours. You cough and cough until your lungs are empty and there’s a terrible mess of blue gel with black chunks jutting out like icebergs. Your senses sharpen because you’re _dying_ and you see the black, charred detritus in perfect detail.

You coughed until your lungs were empty.

Your lungs are _empty._

Cabu came to the realization before you did because just as the thought crosses your mind he’s jamming the needle from the E-pack into your wounded side. You breathe in deep, gulping pants. “Nn… Necklace.” You gasp. “The necklace.”

He sticks his hand down the front of your armor and yanks out the kyber crystal you once gave to Haalika. The cord snaps from around your neck. Nothing makes sense anyway, so he presses the crystal into the wound and you feel the stored Force energy trickle into you like a faucet batted on by a loth cat.

The parasite is gone, but you’re so weak. You pushed yourself too far with the Forbidden Serum. You grasp at the thin tendril of Force and tie it into your core. Distantly, you hear Cabu calling your brothers, breathlessly explaining the miracle even as his voice breaks and his hands shake on your side.

Mandalorians weren’t supposed to come back from their final hunt.

But Mandalorians never let ‘supposed to’ get in the way of doing what needed to be done.

“I’m still here,” you whisper before exhaustion like you’ve never known takes you.

\---

Noise wakes you. Arguing, but the light, family kind. There’s no immediate danger, so you let awareness come slowly. Your siblings are there, even ones that transferred to other clans when they got married. Kyra’s scolding her spouse. A lot of people are touching you, which would be worse if you had any energy to move, but as it is, you just soak up the warmth of silent affection.

Someone notices you’re awake because they touch your cheek. You turn towards them and open your eyes. They feel gummy and lethargic.

...And you don’t recognize the man looking at you so softly. You blink, as if it’ll help, and then study his armor, which actually will help. “Cabu?”

He opens his mouth to respond, but closes it under the barrage of comments from your family and friends. The corner of his mouth pulls up in amusement and you turn your head to the rest of the room. You gather from the loving complaints that you went on your final hunt, got properly injured… and then somehow recovered from the parasite, at which point Cabu and your brothers brought you home to heal.

 _Alor_ is the first one to realize you don’t remember anything that happened since you took the Forbidden Serum. “I’ve never taken it myself, but from what I’ve read, that’s not an unexpected side effect.”

“It’s nice to wake up able to breathe… Or it would be if I had the space to.” You laugh with your family, your _aliit_ and let them rain forehead kisses and hugs on you, though Kyra’s older child smacks your wounded side. Your howl of pain signals a mass exodus from the infirmary. Catra gives you final once over, checking your vitals before leaving you in peace. 

You turn over and see Cabu’s face, his _face_ looking back at you. It’s so strange you don’t know what to say. “You’re beautiful.”

He smiles, even as color warms his cheeks. “You said that then, too.”

“I was right.”

When he gives it a squeeze, you realize he never released your hand. You don’t mind it. You squeeze back. “What’s next?”

“I don’t know, but it’ll be for us, won’t it?”

“It will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Ni partayli, gar darasuum_ \- I remember you, so you are eternal.
> 
> \---
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the ride.
> 
> If you want to read more Mandalorian Adventures, check out [Honor and Duty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7876222) and [The Fox and the Hound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11755608%22).
> 
> If you want to hang out, chat, build up some Mando or SW adventures & OC lore, hit me up on [discord](https://discord.gg/ynkttur).


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